The most dangerous sentence you can start any action with: "This isn't going to work anyway."
Consciousness Is Trying to Understand Your Body from the Inside Out
Consciousness is trying to understand your body from the inside out.
This may sound ridiculous because we already kind of know how a body works, right?
I disagree. I see a lot of people who have no idea how a body works. Besides that, there are things that we actually don't know, like how thoughts work.
Think of this as a curiosity thing, a vibe thing. I literally want to know every small cable in my body.
A Lot of the Knowledge People Have Is Textbook Knowledge
Fantastic. We know what a liver is and what a heart does. But what do we actually know? Can you tell me the state of your heart right now? Is it in good shape? How does it feel relative to a few years ago? What is the weak spot in your body? How is your nervous system? How much "murky water" is around your brain? How does food affect you?
People who are good at consciousness are never sick. Literally not once a year, because you are constantly adjusting based on what you experience. You feel you're getting a little sick? You balance and relax. By doing this all the time, you never have to spend a single minute in bed.
I Am Writing This Down, but I Honestly Have No Idea Where to Start
It's like understanding that there is no single anxiety. Some anxiety comes from your ankle, some from your belly, some from experiences, some from the future, and some anxiety is excitement. A body is unbelievably layered in that sense. I am addicted to the underlying emotion of things. The underlying emotion of sadness, for example.
The Reason Why I Am Typing This
Normally, I would never bother other people with topics like consciousness. I love thinking about consciousness, but I understand that it may not be your cup of tea.
The reason I am writing this is that consciousness can be extremely helpful when it comes to mental health.
We have a lot of indirect evidence about mental health. For example, we know a little about how the brain works through brain scans.
But the brain is, by its very nature, something that has to be understood from the inside out, because everything in your mind is deeply encrypted. Thoughts are like a personal diary.
Therefore, I believe consciousness is, more or less, the ultimate goal of life. Of course, you should still live your normal life, but in a parallel universe, consciousness would be the goal.
When you lose touch with your own consciousness—your own awareness—your quality of life can decline significantly.
Have You Ever Wondered Why Thoughts Recur?
It's never just once. That doesn't make sense. Experiencing a thought once makes sense.
I think it's because our minds want to show us that we can look at things from different vantage points. This is how you saw it five minutes ago, and this is how you see it now.
Moving from 100% Trust
In all discussions about consciousness, the brain, and the body, one theme reoccurs: relationships. I see a lot of people—and I used to do this too—who build unhealthy relationships with things. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way; it's part of learning. But it's important to realize that it's a levels game.
Let's say I build a relationship with food that is based on calories. Theoretically, this makes perfect sense. If I need 3,000 calories a day, I can just eat that, right? Now you're going to run into some problems.
The first one is that by eating 3,000 calories a day, you are wrong 100% of the time. There is literally no day that you need exactly 3,000 calories. One day you might need 4,000 calories; another day, 2,000. This is very important in the way you get through a day. One approach comes from a restrictive mindset; the other comes from, "We'll see how the day unfolds." It's a vibe thing.
The second problem is that the relationship with food can become very one-dimensional. The number of calories should be one of the least important things about what you eat. It's almost something you shouldn't want to know, except in extreme cases—for example, when you have no clue how many calories are in M&Ms.
Relationships like this often occur with dark thoughts too. It's easy to push away dark thoughts and feelings. But that can also become an unhealthy relationship that you build with those thoughts.
Or this one: "I don't feel good, so I need to eat less and work out more." Thoughts like this happen so fast that you almost miss them when they occur.
A brain-body connection should, in the long term, be a trustworthy one. If you mess with your health too much over time, your brain can start giving you paranoia, and you begin thinking you're being chased by helicopters.